In defence of Mother Teresa

by Michael Shackleton · September 7, 2010

Mother Teresa of Calcutta has been accused of having been a hard-line conservative whose clinics were poorly run and who did nothing to alleviate poverty with the money she raised. How can we answer these allegations?

Mother Teresas commitment was to the poorest of the poor who lived and died on the streets. Her motivation was not directly to undertakephilanthropic work, if that means finding housing and healthyliving conditionsfor the distressed. Her aim was to do what Jesus told us: In so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me (Matthew 25:40).

Mother Teresa made it clear that she and her Missionaries of Charity were called to do small things with great love, and this love was to find expression here and now in caring for those diseased, weak and dying people that nobody else was prepared to look after.

She worked in the context of Calcuttas impoverished hordes, not in the circumstances of the ready availability of hospitals and efficient emergency services. She would physically comfort and support the weak, saying that if they had never had love and respect before, she and her Missionaries would give it to them before they died.

The arguments for and against Mother Teresas work and methods will not be resolved without an appreciation of the deepest meaning of Christian love, that is, a humble and unconditional love for others.

As a faithful Christian, Mother Teresa saw her work as Christs work. She accepted the Churchs condemnation of abortion, but it would bewrong to brand her as a hard-line traditionalist without knowing all the circumstances of the stand she took on the issues of the day in Calcutta.

People in India and beyond admired her for her simple life in the service of others. When she died in 1997, the streets of Calcutta were brought to a standstill by the enormous crowds that came to pay her tribute.

Aside from her receiving the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1979, she was awarded many other international honours, and India regards her as one ofits greatest boasts. It seems a bit rash to pick on her now as a failed philanthropist.